

- 

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^Imcncan  ^FJ^^l^^^'^f  ♦ 

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1 

1 
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ADDRESS 

i 
i 

nELlVEUED    ItKFOUR   TlIK 

BRISTOL    COUNTY   AGRICULTURAL    SOCIETY, 

ON    OCCASION    OF   THEIR 

' 

ANNUAL  CATTLE  SHOW  AND   FAIR  AT  TAUNTON, 

-  1 
1 

Oct.  15,  1852. 

1 

BY  ROBERT  C.  WINTHROP. 

BOSTON: 

PRINTED    BY    JOHN    WILSON    &    SON, 

22,  School  Street. 

1853. 

J 

UNIVERSITY  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 
AT  AMHERST 


UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

Special  Collections  &  Rare  Books 


gmcnciin  Agriculture : 


AN 


ADDRESS 


1)ELiveki;d  hkfuuk  'riii: 


BRISTOL    COUNTY   AGRICULTURAL    SOCIETY, 


ON    OCCASION    OF  THEIK 


ANNUAL   CATTLE   SHOW  AND   FAIR   AT   TAUNTON, 


Oct.  15,  1852. 


BY  ROBERT  C.  WINTHROP. 


BOSTON: 

PRINTED    BY    JOHN    WILSON    &    SON, 

22,  School  Street. 

1853. 


At  a  meeting  of  the  ]{iustoi.  County  A(iKicuLTURAL  Society,  Oct.  15,  18">2, 
it  was  uniiniraously  — 

Voted,  Tliat  the  thanks  of  this  Society  be  presented  to  Hon.  Robert  C.  AVinthrop 
for  his  clofjuent  and  instructive  address,  and  that  Mr.  AViuthrop  be  invited  to  furnish 
a  copy  for  the  press. 


ADDRESS. 


I  AM  not  insensible,  Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the 
Bristol  County  Agricultural  Society,  how  adventurous  a 
thing  it  is  for  one  who  has  had  so  little  personal  acquain- 
tance with  agriculture  as  myself — for  one  who  was  born 
and  brought  up  in  a  city  of  paved  streets,  in  which  it  is  our 
special  boast  that  not  a  blade  of  grass  is  ever  permitted  to 
grow — to  undertake  a  formal  address  to  a  society  of  prac- 
tical farmers. 

There  are  those  within  hearing  who  know,  however, — 
and  none  better  than  yourself,  sir,  —  that  I  am  no  volunteer 
on  this  occasion  and  in  this  service ;  that  I  am  not  here 
with  any  presumptuous  proffer  of  information  or  instruc- 
tion, either  to  practical  or  to  theoretical  farmers;  but  that 
I  have  come  in  simple  deference  to  the  repeated  solicita- 
tions of  friends,  and  because  I  have  never  learned  that  great 
art  which  the  fairer  portion  of  my  audience  understand 
how  to  prize  and  how  to  practise,  when  teased  by  the  im- 
portunity of  admiring  suitors,  —  the  art  of  saying  no  I 

Seriously,  my  friends,  I  am  here  with  a  deep  sense  of  my 
own  insufficiency  for  these  things,  and  with  a  full  con- 
sciousness that  there  are  hundreds  around  me  to  whom  I 
might  far  better  offer  myself  as  a  scholar,  than  as  a  teacher, 
upon  any  subject  connected  with  the  cultivation  of  the  soil. 


And  yet,  being  here,  and  the  responsibility  for  my  presence 
being  thus  fairly  rested  upon  other  shoulders,  I  do  not  in- 
tend to  shrink  from  the  legitimate  service  of  the  occasion. 
Having  once  put  my  hand  to  the  plough,  I  am  not  disposed 
"  to  look  back,"  but  shall  proceed  to  break  up  such  a  furrow 
as  I  can,  —  to  turn  over  as  large  a  slice  as  I  am  able,  —  in 
some  corner  or  other  of  the  wide  field  of  agricultural  dis- 
cussion.    Before  entering,  however,  upon  the  graver  topics 
of  the  day,  let  me  give  expression  to  the  emotions  of  plea- 
sure with  which  I  have  always  witnessed  these   Farmers' 
Festivals,  as  often  as  I  have  had  an  opportunity  of  attend- 
ing them.    They  seem  to  me  to  come  nearer  to  fulfilling  the 
true  idea  of  republican  holidays,  than  any  which  our  coun- 
try has  hitherto  afforded.     I  know  not  how  much  they  may 
do  for  the  great  interest  which  they  are  primarily  designed 
to  promote.     It  might  not  be  easy  to  measure  their  precise 
effect  in  improving  the  cultivation,  or  enlarging  the  yield, 
of  the  soil,  —  though,  even  as  to  these  ends,  their  influence, 
I  am  persuaded,  is  by  no  means  inconsiderable.     No  one, 
indeed,  can  doubt,  that  for  spreading  information,  for  ex- 
citing and  directing  inquiry,  for  encouraging   experiment, 
for  stimulating  emulation,  and  for  exhibiting  the  practical 
and  beneficial  results  of  them  all,  such  occasions  furnish 
means  and  opportunities  which  could  be  supplied  in   no 
other  way ;  and  I  venture  to  say,  that  there  is  not  a  farmer 
before  me  at  this  moment,  who,  if  he  should  be  rebuked  on 
his  return  by  some  stay-at-home  neighbor  or  by  some  over- 
anxious spouse,  as  having  lost  a  day  in  attending  the  Cat- 
tle Show,  would  not  confidently  reply,  that,  instead  of  los- 
ing one  day,  he  had  gained  ten,  in  the  new  ideas  and  fresh 
incentives  which  he  had  brought  back  for  his  future  efforts. 
But,  however  this   may  be,  the  influence  of  such  occa- 
sions in  other  ways  is  even  more  appreciable.     Their  influ- 
ence in  the  cultivation  of  good  feehngs  and  good  fellowship 
among  the  friends  of  agriculture,  and  of  labor  generally. 


in  different  parts  of  the  State  and  of  the  nation ;  their 
efficacy  in  sowing  the  seeds  and  increasing  the  harvest 
of  mutual  acquaintance,  mutual  regard,  mutual  respect, 
among  all,  of  all  classes,  sexes,  and  occupations,  who  at- 
tend them ;  their  annual  operation  in  garnering  up  in  the 
hearts  of  each  one  of  us  a  seasonable  supply  of  good-will 
and  friendly  sentiment  towards  each  other,  against  the  day 
when  personal  competitions  or  political  conflicts  shall  come 
round  to  bring  blight  and  mildew  to  so  many  of  the  nobler 
feelings  of  the  soul,  and  to  threaten  starvation  and  famine 
to  the  whole  better  part  of  our  nature,  —  these  are  among 
the  results  of  such  festivals  as  this,  which  must  ever  com- 
mend them  to  the  regard  of  every  Christian  philanthropist. 
You  are  here,  my  friends,  from  all  quarters  of  the  Old 
Colony,  and  from  many  other  parts  of  the  Common- 
wealth and  of  the  country,  from  all  pursuits  and  profes- 
sions and  political  parties,  to  join  hands  and  hearts  in  fur- 
therance of  the  great  industrial  interests  of  the  people. 
Some  of  you  are  here  as  practical  producers,  proud  to  dis- 
play the  results  of  your  own  labor  and  skill  in  the  field  or 
the  dairy ;  and  some  of  you  have  come  as  amateurs,  gra- 
tified to  behold  the  successes  and  achievements  of  your 
neighbors  or  friends.  And  we  have  all  come  as  consu- 
mers, whether  of  our  own  or  of  other  people's  produce  ; 
and  we  all  rejoice  in  the  assurances  and  evidences  which 
such  occasions  afford,  that  it  will  not  be  the  fault  of  the 
ignorance  or  the  idleness  of  man,  if  an  abundance  of  the 
best  food  shall  ever  be  wanting  to  ourselves  or  our  children. 
But  we  have  all  come,  too,  I  trust  and  believe,  in  no  vain 
and  arrogant  reliance  on  human  industry  or  human  science 
for  our  daily  bread,  but  with  hearts  grateful  towards  Hea- 
ven for  the  gracious  promise  that  seed-time  and  harvest 
shall  never  fail,  and  for  the  great  providential  agencies  to 
which  we  primarily  owe  whatever  of  agricultural  success 
we  have  enjoyed  or  witnessed. 


For,  indeed,  if  there  be  any  thing  calculated  to  inspire  a 
spirit  of  devout  dependence  and  gratitude  in  the  heart  of 
man,  it  is  the  course  of  nature  as  contemplated  in  the  ope- 
rations of  the  husbandman.  There  are  at  least  two  things 
which  a  farmer  can  never  do  without,  —  the  sun  and  the 
shower.  No  industry,  no  science,  can  supply  their  place. 
For  almost  every  thing  else  there  may  be  some  sort  of  sub- 
stitute contrived.  But  who  can  contrive  a  substitute  for  a 
day's  sunshine,  or  even  for  an  hour's  rain  ?  What  artifi- 
cial irrigation  could  prevent  or  mitigate  the  consequences 
of  a  midsummer's  drought?  What  mechanical  arrange- 
ment of  stoves,  what  chemical  evolution  of  heat,  could 
stay  the  ravages  of  an  early  frost  ?  How  impotent  is  the 
arm  of  man,  in  presence  of  agencies  like  these,  blighting 
in  a  week,  or  even  nipping  in  a  night,  the  whole  result  of 
a  year  of  toil!  We  may  invent  curious  implements  and 
marvellous  machines  to  save  our  own  labor;  but  we  can 
invent  nothing  which  shall  dispense  with  the  blessing  of 
God.  Man  may  plough,  man  may  plant;  but  man  cannot 
give  the  increase.  The  great  indispensable  machinery  of 
agriculture  must  ever  be  the  "  Mecanique  Celeste,"  that 
sublime  and  stupendous  system  of  suns  and  spheres  and 
rolling  orbs,  moving  on  in  serene  and  solemn  majesty  above 
us,  and  — 

"  For  ever  singing,  as  they  shine. 
The  hand  that  made  us  is  Divine." 

And  now,  Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen,  I  am  here  for  no 
rhetorical  display.  I  shall  attempt  nothing  of  the  poetry  or 
romance  of  agriculture.  But  I  desire  to  invite  your  atten- 
tion to  a  few  plain  and  practical  considerations,  which  have 
struck  me  as  not  unimportant  or  uninteresting  in  them- 
selves, and  as  not  inappropriate  to  an  occasion  of  this  sort. 

Few  things  have  been  more  noticeable,  and  few  things,  I 
am  sure,  more  gratifying  to  us  all,  than  the  increased  inter- 


est  which  has  been  lately  manifested  in  many  parts  of  the 
Union,  and  more  especially  in  our  own  Commonwealth, 
in  the  honored  cause  for  which  you  are  associated.  We 
have  all  witnessed  with  no  ordinary  satisfaction  the  eflbrts 
which  have  been  made,  and  which  have  been  so  success- 
fully made,  to  awaken  the  public  mind  to  a  deeper  sense 
of  the  importance  and  dignity  of  agricultural  pursuits. 
We  have  all  rejoiced  to  find  some  of  our  ablest  and  most 
accomplished  minds  devoting  themselves  to  subjects  con- 
nected with  the  cultivation  of  land,  the  improvement  of 
stock,  the  scientific  analysis  of  soils  and  of  plants,  and  the 
preservation  and  propagation  of  fruit-trees  and  forest- 
trees.  The  best  wishes  and  the  best  hopes  of  us  all  have 
attended  the  local  and  the  national  conventions  which 
have  been  held  on  the  subject  during  the  past  year ;  and 
we  have  hailed  with  peculiar  pleasure  the  establishment  and 
organization  of  a  Board  of  Agriculture,  under  the  auspices 
of  our  own  Commonwealth. 

I  think  we  shall  acknowledge,  however,  that  it  is  of  the 
highest  importance,  at  such  a  moment,  that  we  should 
have  some  correct  and  exact  ideas  as  to  what  is  to  be 
done,  and  as  to  what  can  be  accomplished,  in  this  behalf ; 
that  we  should  take  a  careful  sm*vey  of  the  actual  condi- 
tion of  American  agriculture  and  of  the  real  wants  of  the 
American  farmer;  so  that  we  may  propose  to  ourselves 
some  definite,  practical,  and  practicable  ends,  and  so  that 
our  efforts  may  terminate  in  something  better  than  vague 
promises,  exaggerated  estimates,  and  false  expectations. 
We  have  been  accustomed,  of  late  years,  to  hear  from 
some  quarters  of  the  country,  and  from  some  parts  of  the 
community,  language  of  this  sort :  —  Agriculture  is  a  ne- 
glected interest.  Government  does  nothing  for  it.  Legis- 
lators, State  and  National,  can  find  time  and  can  find 
inducements  for  promoting  and  for  protecting  every  other 
employment  and  occupation  of  the  people.     They  can  do 


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every  thing  for  commerce.  They  can  do  every  thing  for 
the  fisheries.  They  can  do  every  thing  for  manufactures 
and  the  mechanic  arts.  But  the  farmers  can  find  nobody 
to  do  or  to  say  any  thing  in  their  behalf. 

Now,  I  will  not  stop  to  inquire  directly  how  far  this 
language  is  reasonable  or  just,  either  towards  our  State  or 
National  Governments.  Nor  will  I  do  more  than  suggest, 
in  this  connection,  that,  if  there  has  been  any  wrong  of  this 
kind,  whether  of  omission  or  of  commission,  the  redress  has 
always  been  within  the  reach  of  the  injured  parties;  the 
farmers  having  always  been  a  great  majority  in  the  na- 
tion at  large,  embracing,  it  is  estimated,  "more  than  three- 
fourths  of  the  population,"  and  having  thus  had  it  always  in 
their  power  to  control  the  action  of  the  Government  at  any 
time,  through  the  simple  agency  of  the  elective  franchise. 

But  taking  it  for  granted,  for  a  moment,  that  the  allega- 
tion has  been  well  laid,  that  the  grievance  has  been  real, 
that  an  interposition  has  at  last  been  successfully  made, 
and  that  the  farmers  are  henceforth  about  to  have  their 
own  way  in  the  affairs  of  the  country,  I  am  disposed  to 
ask  some  such  questions  as  these: — What  can  Government 
do  for  American  agriculture?  What  can  it  do  for  the  in- 
terests and  welfare  of  the  farmers  ?  What  could  it  ever 
have  done  ?     What  has  it  done  or  left  undone  hitherto  ? 

I  do  not  state  these  questions  as  distinct  propositions,  to 
be  distinctly  and  formally  treated  in  the  order  in  which 
they  have  been  stated,  like  the  heads  of  an  old-fashioned 
sermon,  but  as  presenting  the  details  of  a  general  inquiry 
which  I  desire  to  institute,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  within 
the  reasonable  limits  of  such  a  discourse,  to  answer. 

And  here,  at  the  outset,  let  me  remark,  that  it  is  not 
altogether  easy  or  practicable  to  treat  the  agricultural  inter- 
ests of  the  United  States  as  a  single  idea,  and  to  include 
them  all  as  the  subject  of  a  common  discussion.  When 
we  speak  of  British  agriculture  or  of  European  agriculture, 


we  have  in  our  minds  a  homogeneous  subject.  But  the 
vast  territorial  extent  of  our  country,  and  its  varied  soils 
and  climates  and  productions,  prevent  altogether  that  per- 
fect unity  and  identity  of"  interest  which  are  found  among 
the  tillers  of  the  earth  in  other  lands.  The  planting  in- 
terests of  the  Southern  States  present,  I  need  not  say,  a 
totally  different  subject  of  discussion  from  the  farming  in- 
terests of  the  Nortliern  and  Western  States.  The  charac- 
ter of  the  labor  by  which  the  great  crops  of  the  South  are 
raised,  and  the  purposes  to  which  they  are  applied,  make 
them  an  obvious  exception  to  the  general  subject  of  Ame- 
rican agriculture,  or,  at  any  rate,  so  distinct  a  branch  of  it 
as  requires  a  distinct  and  separate  consideration. 

I  intend,  then,  in  these  remarks,  to  confine  myself  to  the 
agriculture  which  is  carried  on  by  the  hands  of  freemen, 
and  which  is  generally  occupied  in  the  production  of  food. 

And  in  reference  to  American  agriculture,  as  thus  under- 
stood, I  begin  by  asserting  that  Government  can  do  little 
or  nothing  for  its  protection,  in  the  sense  in  which  the  term 
"  protection"  is  employed  in  such  connections,  by  any  di- 
rect means ;  and  that,  even  were  what  is  called  "  the  Pro- 
tecting System,"  the  established  policy  of  the  country,  it 
would  be  impossible  to  apply  it  to  any  considerable  extent, 
directly  and  immediately,  to  agriculture. 

The  protection  of  agriculture  is  an  idea  plainly  applica- 
ble to  countries  in  which  food  cannot  be  produced  in  suffi- 
cient quantities  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  population,  or  in 
which  it  cannot  be  produced  at  all,  except  at  a  higher  cost 
than  that  at  which  it  could  be  procured  from  other  sources 
of  supply.  It  supposes  a  competition,  actual,  or  at  least 
possible,  in  our  own  markets  with  the  products  of  our  own 
fields.  It  is  a  protection  against  something,  and  that  some- 
thing is  obviously  foreign  importation. 

Great  Britain  may  be  in  a  condition  to  protect  her  agri- 
culture.    And  she  did  so  in  earnest,  and  most  effectively, 


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for  a  long  series  of  years,  by  a  systematic  arrangement  of 
prohibitory  duties  or  sliding  scales.  She  may  now  find  it 
more  consistent  with  her  general  welfare,  —  more  for  her 
advantage,  in  view  of  her  manufacturing  and  commercial 
interests,  —  more  for  the  improvement  of  her  whole  condi- 
tion, to  relax  or  abandon  this  system  for  a  time  or  alto- 
gether. But  this  is  a  question  with  her  of  policy,  and  not 
of  power.  Nobody  doubts  that  the  state  of  British  agri- 
culture, the  relation  of  production  to  population,  the  pro- 
portion of  supply  to  demand,  render  it  susceptible  of  this 
sort  of  governmental  protection.  And  so  it  may  be,  and  so 
it  is,  with  other  countries  of  the  Old  World,  and  perhaps 
of  the  New. 

But  what  could  prohibitory  duties  or  sliding  scales,  ap- 
plied to  agricultural  productions,  accomplish  for  the  Ame- 
rican farmer  ?  Is  there  any  scarcity  of  food  among  us, 
inviting  supplies  from  abroad?  Can  food  be  raised  in 
other  regions,  and  imported  into  our  country,  at  lower  rates 
than  those  at  which  we  can  raise  it  for  ourselves?  Do  any 
foreign  products  of  the  soil  enter  into  injurious  competition 
with  our  own  products  in  the  American  market  ?  There 
may  be  a  little  flax-seed,  a  little  coarse  wool,  or  a  few 
hides,  brought  here  from  South  America  or  the  East  In- 
dies ;  and  now  and  then,  during  the  prevalence  of  a  myste- 
rious blight,  our  provincial  neighbors  may  supply  us  with  a 
few  potatoes,  or  even  with  a  little  wheat.  But  these  are 
exceptional  cases,  entirely  capable  of  explanation,  if  they 
were  important  enough  to  justify  the  consumption  of  time 
which  such  an  explanation  would  involve. 

The  great  peculiarity  in  the  condition  of  the  United 
States  is,  I  need  not  say,  its  immense  and  immeasurable 
agricultural  resources.  Our  boundless  extent  of  fertile 
land,  and  the  hardly  more  than  nominal  price  at  which  it 
may  be  purchased,  have  settled  the  question  for  a  thousand 
years,  if  not  for  ever,  that,  unless  in  some  extraordinary 


emergency  of  famine  or  of  civil  war,  our  farmers  will  have 
the  undisputed  control  of  onr  own  markets,  without  the  aid 
of  prohibitory  duties  or  protective  tariffs.  It  may  be  said 
to  be  with  our  lands,  as  it  certainly  is  with  our  liberties: 
the  condition  of  both  may  be  described  by  the  striking 
couplet  of  Dry  den:  — 

"  Our  only  grievance  is  excess  of  ease, 
Freedom  our  pain,  and  plenty  our  disease." 

Other  Governments  can  do  much  more  for  political  liberty 
than  our  Government  can  do,  because  there  is  so  much 
more  of  this  sort  in  other  countries  left  to  be  done.  We 
have  a  noble  system  of  independence  and  freedom,  already 
established  and  secured  to  us  by  the  toil  and  treasure  and 
blood  of  our  fathers.  We  of  this  generation  may  say 
with  the  glorious  apostle :  "  With  a  great  price  purchased 
they  this  freedom ;  but  we  were  born  free."  The  most, 
therefore,  that  any  American  Government  can  do  now  is 
to  maintain,  uphold,  and  administer,  according  to  the  true 
spirit  and  intent  of  those  who  acquired  it,  the  ample  patri- 
mony of  freedom  which  has  been  bequeathed  to  us.  God 
grant  that  there  may  never  be  wanting  to  us  rulers  capable 
of  doing  so ! 

And  now,  my  friends.  Nature  —  1  should  rather  say, 
a  kind  Providence  —  has  done  for  our  agricultural  condi- 
tion very  much  what  the  wisdom  and  valor  of  our  fathers 
have  effected  for  our  political  condition.  It  has  given  us  a 
vast  extent  of  virgin  soil,  susceptible  of  every  variety  of 
culture,  and  capable  of  yielding  food  for  countless  millions 
beyond  our  present  population.  It  is  ours  to  occupy,  to 
enjoy,  to  improve  and  preserve  it ;  and  no  protective  sys- 
tems are  necessary  to  secure  a  market  for  as  much  of  its 
produce  as  we,  and  our  children,  and  our  children's  children 
for  a  hundred  generations,  can  eat.  Government  can  thus 
do  nothing,  nothing  whatever,  in  the  way  of  direct  and  im- 

2 


10 


mediate  protection  to  American  agriculture.  And  when  it 
is  said,  therefore,  that  our  legislators  can  protect  commerce, 
can  protect  manufactures,  can  find  time  to  look  after  all 
the  interests  of  the  merchant,  the  mechanic,  the  artisan, 
the  navigator,  and  the  fisherman,  but  can  find  no  time  to 
look  after  the  interests  of  the  farmer,  —  let  it  not  be  forgot- 
ten that  such  protection  as  may  be  afforded  to  commerce 
and  manufactures,  through  the  aid  of  a  revenue  system,  is, 
from  the  nature  of  things,  impracticable  and  impossible  for 
agriculture.  Let  it  not  be  forgotten,  that,  as  to  the  great 
mass  of  human  food  which  our  soil  supplies,  we  have  a 
natural  and  perpetual  monopoly  in  our  own  markets  for  as 
much  as  we  can  any  way  furnish  mouths  to  consume  or 
money  to  pay  for.  The  ability  to  consume,  in  a  word, 
pecuniary  or  physical,  is  the  only  limit  to  the  demand  for 
agricultural  produce  among  ourselves ;  and  this  ability  can 
by  no  possibility  be  affected  by  any  legislative  measures 
directed  to  the  immediate  promotion  or  protection  of  agri- 
culture. 

And  here  let  me  suggest  a  distinction,  which,  though 
often  lost  sight  of,  is,  in  this  country  at  least,  a  real  dis- 
tinction, and  not  unworthy  of  serious  attention :  I  mean 
the  distinction  between  the  promotion  of  agriculture,  and 
the  promotion  of  the  immediate  interests  of  those  engaged 
in  it.  The  promotion  of  agriculture  looks  obviously  to 
an  extended  and  an  improved  cultivation  of  the  soil,  to 
the  introduction  of  better  processes  and  better  implements 
of  agricultural  labor,  and  to  the  consequent  production  of 
larger  crops  and  more  luxuriant  harvests.  But  would  such 
results  be  necessarily  for  the  immediate  benefit  of  the  great 
body  of  American  farmers?  Would  their  condition,  as 
individuals  or  as  an  aggregate  class,  be  improved,  —  would 
their  crops  be  enhanced  in  price,  or  stand  a  chance  of  com- 
manding a  convenient  sale  at  any  price,  if  the  number  of 
farmers  were  multiplied,  if  the  breadth  of  land  under  culti- 


11 

vation  were  extended,  and  if,  by  the  aid  of  greater  science, 
of  new  manures,  new  machines,  and  new  modes  of  culture, 
each  one  of  them  could  double  the  yield  of  every  acre  of 
his  land  ?  Is  it  not  obvious,  that,  unless  new  and  adequate 
markets  were  simultaneously  opened,  the  only  consequence 
would  be  a  still  greater  overplus  of  production,  a  still 
greater  diminution  of  agricultural  produce,  and  a  still  '^ie^<zs2. 
greater  depression  of  the  individual  prosperity  and  wel- 
fare of  the  farmers  ? 

The  result  of  both  the  considerations  which  I  have  thus 
far  suggested  is  the  same.  The  great  agricultural  want  of 
our  country  is  the  want  of  consumers  and  not  of  producers, 
of  mouths  and  not  of  hands,  of  markets  and  not  of  crops. 
And  this  is  a  want  which  no  government  protection,  like 
that  which  has  been,  or  may  be,  afforded  to  manufactures 
or  to  commerce,  can  possibly  supply.  On  the  contrary, 
that  sort  of  protection  would  only  increase  the  difficulty, 
and  aggravate  the  disease. 

Indeed,  the  policy  of  our  Government,  in  one  particu- 
lar at  least,  has  already  tended  greatly  to  this  result :  I 
mean  its  Public  Land  Policy.  Who  can  say  that  Govern- 
ment has  done  nothing  for  the  protection  of  agriculture, 
who  contemplates,  for  an  instant,  the  course  and  conse- 
quences of  this  gigantic  system?  Consider  the  expendi- 
ture of  care  and  of  money,  at  which  our  vast  territorial 
possessions  have  been  acquired  !  Consider  the  expensive 
negociations,  and  the  still  more  expensive  wars,  by  which 
they  have  been  purchased  or  conquered  from  foreign  na- 
tions or  from  the  Indian  tribes !  Consider  the  compKcated 
and  costly  machinery  of  their  survey  and  sale,  and  the  sys- 
tematic provisions  which  have  been  made  for  securing  to 
every  settler  that  first  great  want  of  an  independent  farmer, 
—  a  perfect  title  to  his  land  !  And  then  consider  the  almost 
nominal  price  at  which  any  number  of  acres  may  be  pur- 
chased ! 


12 


I  would  not  question  the  wisdom  of  this  policy,  for  the 
purposes  for  which  it  was  designed.  It  was  designed  to 
effect  an  early  settlement  and  civilization  of  the  great  West; 
and  its  wisdom  is  justified  by  the  existence,  at  so  early  a 
period  after  its  adoption,  of  so  many  populous  and  pros- 
perous States,  in  regions  which  were,  seemingly  but  yester- 
day, the  abodes  of  wild  beasts  or  wilder  men.  We  hail 
those  new  and  noble  States,  as  they  successively  and 
rapidly  advance  to  maturity,  as  the  proudest  products  of 
our  land,  and  welcome  them  to  the  privileges  and  the 
glories  of  a  Union  which  we  pray  may  be  perpetual. 

The  influences  of  this  policy,  in  some  other  ways,  may 
have  been  of  a  more  doubtful  character.  But  who  can  say 
that  the  American  Government  has  done  nothing  for  agri- 
culture, with  such  a  policy,  so  long  and  systematically 
pursued,  before  his  eyes  ?  What  greater  bounty  could  be 
contrived  for  the  multiplication  of  farmers,  and  for  the 
extended  cultivation  of  the  soil,  than  the  standing  offer  of 
the  best  land  in  the  world,  with  its  title  guaranteed  by 
the  strong  arm  of  the  nation,  and  its  muniments  deposited 
in  the  iron  safes  of  the  Government,  at  a  dollar  and  a  quar- 
ter an  acre  ?  —  unless,  indeed,  it  be  found  in  the  absolute 
gift  of  a  homestead  to  every  settler  for  two  or  three  years, 
or  in  the  "  vote  yourself  a  farm,"  or  "  land  for  the  landless," 
projects  of  the  present  day.  What  has  the  Government 
ever  done  for  commerce  or  for  manufactures,  which  can 
compare  with  this  great  bonus  to  agriculture  ?  Nay,  what 
has  the  Government  ever  done,  or  ever  been  able  to  do,  to 
counteract  the  constant  drain  upon  commercial  and  manu- 
facturing labor  which  this  system  has  created? 

No  one,  I  suppose,  can  doubt  that  one  of  the  great  obsta- 
cles in  the  way  of  establishing  and  maintaining  a  manu- 
facturing system,  and  of  building  up  the  mechanic  arts,  in 
these  Eastern  States,  has  been  the  constant  inducement 
and  temptation  to  leave  home  and  go  off  to  the  West, 


13 


which  have  been  held  out,  in  the  fertility  and  cheapness  of 
the  Western  lands,  to  the  young  men  and  young  women, 
whose  hands  were  essential  to  the  loom,  the  spindle,  the 
lapstone  or  the  anvil.  The  absolute  necessity  of  counter- 
acting these  inducements  and  temptations,  by  an  increased 
rate  of  wages  at  home,  has  materially  aggravated  one  of 
the  greatest  difficulties  which  we  have  encountered,  in  the 
way  of  a  successful  competition  with  the  manufacturers  of 
the  old  world.  The  influence  of  the  luxuriant  prairies  and 
rich  bottoms  of  Illinois,  and  Indiana,  and  Iowa,  and  Wis- 
consin, and  the  rest,  has  been  similar  to  that  of  the  placers 
and  gold  mines  of  California  at  the  present  moment ;  and, 
though  less  in  degree,  has  been  far  more  steady  and  dura- 
ble than  that  is  likely  to  be.  Our  young  men  and  young 
women  will  not  be  long  in  learning,  that  there  are  more  pro- 
fitable diggings,  in  the  long  run,  on  this  side  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  than  on  the  other.  They  will  not  be  long  in 
appreciating  the  philosophy  of  the  cock,  in  the  old  fable  of 
^sop,  who  discovered  that  corn  was  a  more  reliable  trea- 
sure than  jewels.  They  will  not  be  long  in  realizing,  that 
even  golden  carrots  may  be  a  more  certain  crop  than  carats 
of  gold.  They  will  soon  understand  the  wisdom  of  Frank- 
lin, in  his  conclusion  of  one  of  the  numbers  of  the  "  Busy 
Body,"  —  a  little  series  of  essays  published  by  him  in  Phi- 
ladelphia in  1729,  and  which,  though  among  his  earliest 
compositions,  are  replete  with  the  wit  and  shrewdness  and 
sterling  common  sense  which  characterized  his  maturer 
productions. 

"  I  shall  conclude,"  said  he,  "  with  the  words  of  my  dis- 
creet friend,  Agricola,  of  Chester  County,  when  he  gave 
his  son  a  good  plantation,  — '  My  son,  I  give  thee  now  a 
valuable  parcel  of  land.  I  assure  thee  I  have  found  a  con- 
siderable quantity  of  gold  by  digging  there :  thee  may'st 
do  the  same;  but  thee  must  carefully  observe  this, —  never 
to  dig  more  than  plough-deep.'  " 


14 


The  temptations  of  good  land  will  last  longer  than  those 
of  gold  mines.  There  is  a  love  for  acres.  There  is  a  charm 
in  independent  proprietorship.  There  is  health,  and  happi- 
ness, and  a  sense  of  freedom,  in  rural  life  and  rural  labor. 
There  is  a  proud  consciousness  of  virtue,  and  of  worth,  and 
of  self-reliance,  in  the  breast  of  the  honest  and  industrious 
farmer,  like  that  to  which  the  simple  shepherd  of  Shak- 
speare  gave  utterance,  when  reproached  by  the  clown  with 
a  want  of  courtly  manners  :  — 

"  Sir,  I  am  a  true  laborer.  I  earn  that  I  eat,  get  that  I 
wear ;  owe  no  man  hate,  envy  no  man's  happiness ;  glad 
of  other  men's  good,  content  with  my  harm ;  and  the  great- 
est of  my  pride  is  to  see  my  ewes  graze,  and  my  lambs 
suck." 

Feelings  and  instincts  like  these,  to  which  no  bosom  is  a 
stranger,  will  outweigh  and  outlast  the  temptations  of  the 
richest  placers  of  the  Pacific,  and  will  create  a  yearning 
towards  the  broad  fields  and  noble  forests  of  the  great 
West,  in  the  hearts  of  our  enterprising  young  men  and 
young  women,  as  long  as  a  single  township  or  a  single 
quarter  section  shall  remain  unsold  or  unsettled.  That 
whole  vast  domain  will  thus  continue  to  operate  in  the 
future,  as  it  has  operated  in  the  past,  as  a  continual  govern- 
ment bounty  upon  the  multiplication  of  farmers,  and  the 
extension  of  agriculture. 

And  now,  having  said  thus  much,  and  the  limits  of  this 
address  will  not  allow  me  to  say  more,  both  in  regard  to 
what  Government  cannot  do  for  American  agriculture,  and 
also  as  to  what  it  actually  has  done  in  the  past,  I  come  to 
a  brief  consideration  of  what  it  can  do,  and  what  it  ought 
to  do,  in  the  future. 

In  the  first  place,  it  can  adopt  systematic,  comprehensive, 
and  permanent  measures  for  ascertaining  from  year  to  year, 
or  certainly  from  census  to  census,  the  actual  condition  of 
our  country  in  relation  to  agriculture,  the  quantity  of  land 


15 


under  cultivation,  the  proportion  of  cultivated  land  devoted 
to  the  production  of  different  articles  of  food,  the  relation  of 
production  to  population  in  the  various  States  and  in  the 
country  at  large,  the  comparative  productiveness  of  the 
same  crops  in  different  parts  of  the  Union  and  under  dif- 
ferent modes  of  culture,  and  generally  whatever  details 
may  be  included  in  a  complete  statistical  account  of  Ame- 
rican agriculture. 

Our  commercial  and  navigating  statistics  are  already 
provided  for,  as  incidental  to  our  revenue-system.  We 
need  similar  returns  both  of  our  agriculture  and  our  manu- 
factures ;  and  I  should  not  be  sorry  to  have  them  committed 
to  a  common  bureau. 

One  of  the  brief  sayings,  which  have  given  a  name  and  a 
perpetual  fame  to  the  Seven  "Wise  Men  of  Ancient  Greece, 
is  the  simple  precept,  "  Know  thyself."  And  a  celebrated 
Latin  poet  has  not  been  willing  to  regard  it  as  a  mere  say- 
ing of  human  origin,  but  has  emphatically  declared  that 
it  descended  from  heaven. 

It  was  a  saying  addressed  to  individual  man,  and  un- 
doubtedly contemplated  that  self-examination,  that  search- 
ing of  the  heart,  which  is  a  duty  of  higher  than  human 
authority,  and  which  is  essential  to  all  moral  or  spiritual 
improvement.  But  it  is  a  doctrine  as  applicable  to  the 
outer  as  to  the  inner  man,  and  as  essential  to  the  progress 
and  improvement  of  nations  as  of  individuals.  And  this 
country,  beyond  all  other  countries,  needs  to  know  itself,  to 
understand  its  own  condition,  to  watch  closely  its  own  pro- 
gress, to  keep  the  rim  of  it,  as  we  may  well  say,  for  it  is 
always  on  the  run,  advancing  and  going  ahead  with  a  rapi- 
dity never  before  witnessed,  or  dreamed  of.  More  especially 
should  the  industry  of  our  country  know  itself,  and  realize 
its  own  condition  and  circumstances.  American  labor,  in 
all  its  branches,  should  have  a  map,  on  which  it  may  behold 
its  own  aggregate  position,  and  its  own  individual  relations, 


16 


and  by  which  it  may  be  enabled  to  see  what  obstructions 
and  interferences  are  in  the  way  of  its  prosperous  progress ; 
to  see  particularly  where  it  obstructs  itself,  by  pressing  into 
departments  already  too  crowded,  and  where  it  may  obtain 
relief  and  elbow-room  in  departments  not  yet  occupied. 
American  agriculture,  above  all,  should  be  able  to  look  it- 
self fairly  in  the  face,  as  in  a  mirror,  through  the  medium  of 
the  most  detailed  and  exact  periodical  surveys,  that  it  may 
discover  seasonably  any  symptoms  of  over-action  or  of 
under-action,  if  there  be  any;  and  that  it  may  run  no  risk 
of  expending  and  wasting  its  energies  in  unprofitable  toils. 

In  the  next  place,  Government,  State  and  National,  can 
encourage  agricultural  science,  and  promote  agricultural 
education. 

This  subject  has  been  so  nearly  exhausted,  during  the 
last  year  or  two,  by  President  Hitchcock's  report  to  our 
own  Legislature,  by  Dr.  Lee's  reports  to  the  Patent  Office 
at  Washington,  and  by  the  lectures  and  addresses  in  which 
it  has  been  treated  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  that  I  propose 
to  notice  it  very  briefly. 

Undoubtedly  the  noble  system  of  common  school  edu- 
cation, which  is  already  in  existence  among  us,  and  for 
which  we  can  never  be  too  grateful  to  our  Puritan  Fathers, 
is  itself  no  small  aid  to  the  cause  of  agriculture.  The  far- 
mers, and  the  farmers'  children,  enjoy  their  full  share  of  its 
benefits.  It  furnishes  that  original  sub-soil  ploughing  to 
the  youthful  mind  which  is  essential  to  the  success  of 
whatever  other  culture  it  may  be  destined  to  undergo. 
There  is  no  education,  after  all,  which  can  take  the  place 
of  reading,  writing,  and  keeping  accounts;  and  the  young 
man  who  is  master  of  these  elemental  arts,  and  whose 
eye  has  been  sharpened  by  observation,  and  his  mind 
trained  to  reflection,  and  his  heart  disciplined  to  a  sense  of 
moral  and  religious  responsibility,  —  and  these  are  the 
great  ends  and  the  great  achievements  of  our   common 


17 


schools,  —  will  not  go  forth  to  the  work  of  his  life,  whether 
it  be  manual  or  mental,  whether  of  the  loom  or  the  anvil,  of 
the  pen  or  the  plough,  without  the  real,  indispensable  requi- 
sites for  success.  The  great  secret  and  solution  of  the 
wonderful  advance  which  has  been  witnessed  of  late  years, 
in  all  the  useful  arts,  has  been  the  union  of  the  thinking 
mind  and  the  working  hand  in  the  same  person.  Hereto- 
fore, for  long  ages,  they  have  been  everywhere  separated. 
One  set  of  men  have  done  the  thinking,  and  another  set 
of  men  have  done  the  working.  The  land  has  been  tilled, 
the  loom  has  been  tended,  the  hammer  and  the  hoe  have 
been  wielded,  by  slaves,  or  by  men  hardly  more  intelligent 
or  independent  than  their  brute  yoke-fellows.  In  other 
countries,  to  a  considerable  extent,  and  even  in  our  own,  so 
far  as  one  region  and  one  race  are  concerned,  this  separa- 
tion still  exists.  But  a  great  change  has  been  brought 
about  by  the  gradual  progress  of  free  institutions  ;  and,  in 
the  Free  States  of  our  own  country  especially,  we  see  a 
complete  combination  of  the  working  hand  and  the  think- 
ing mind,  of  the  strong  arm  and  the  intelligent  soul,  in  the 
same  human  frame.  This  has  been  the  glorious  result  of 
our  common  school  system,  the  cost  of  which,  great  as  it 
has  been  and  still  is,  has  been  remunerated  a  thousand  fold, 
even  in  a  mere  pecuniary  way,  by  the  improvements,  inven- 
tions, discoveries,  and  savings  of  all  sorts,  which  have  been 
made  by  educated  labor  in  all  the  varied  departments  of 
human  industry.  It  is  now  everywhere  seen  and  admitted, 
that  the  most  expensive  labor  which  can  be  employed  is 
ignorant  labor ;  and,  fortunately,  there  is  very  little  of  it  left 
in  the  American  market. 

But,  whUe  the  great  substratum  of  all  education  for  all 
pursuits  is  abundantly  and  admirably  supplied  by  our  com- 
mon schools,  no  one  can  fail  to  perceive,  or  hesitate  to 
admit,  the  advantages  which  may  accrue  from  something 
of  a  more  specific  and  supplementary  instruction  for  those 


18 


to  whom  the  care  and  culture  of  the  American  soil  is  to 
be  committed.  The  earth  beneath  us  has  been  too  long 
regarded  and  treated  as  something  incapable  of  being 
injured  by  any  thing  short  of  a  natural  convulsion,  or  a 
providential  cataclysm.  We  have  been  so  long  accus- 
tomed to  dig  it,  and  ditch  it,  and  drain  it,  and  hoe  it,  and 
rake  it,  and  harrow  it,  and  trample  it  under  our  feet,  and 
plough  long  funrows  in  its  back  ;  and  have  so  long  found  it 
repaying  such  treatment  by  larger  and  larger  measures  of 
endurance,  generosity,  and  beneficence, —  that  we  have  been 
ready  to  regard  it  as  absolutely  insensible  to  injury.  Be- 
cause our  chains  and  stakes  have  exhibited  from  year  to  year 
the  same  superficial  measurements,  we  have  flattered  our- 
selves that  our  farms  were  undergoing  no  detriment  or  dimi- 
nution. We  have  remembered  the  maxim  of  the  law,  "  He 
who  owns  the  soil  owns  it  to  the  sky,"  and  have  been  care- 
ful to  let  nothing  interfere  with  our  air  or  daylight ;  but  we 
have  omitted  to  look  below  the  surface,  and  to  discover  and 
provide  against  the  robbery  which  has  been  annually  per- 
petrated, by  day  and  by  night,  upon  its  most  valuable 
ingredients  and  elements. 

The  discovery  has  at  last  been  made,  the  danger  has 
been  revealed,  the  alarm  has  been  sounded ;  and  if  Govern- 
ment can  provide  bounties  for  the  destruction  of  the  wolves 
and  bears  and  foxes,  which  threaten  our  flocks,  our  herds, 
and  our  hen-roosts,  I  see  not  how  it  can  withhold  some  sea- 
sonable provision  against  the  far  more  frequent  and  more 
disastrous  depredations  by  which  our  soil  is  despoiled  of  its 
treasures,  through  the  want  of  science  and  skill  on  the  part 
of  those  who  till  it.  These  depredations  are  none  the  less 
treacherous,  or  the  less  formidable,  I  need  not  say,  for  being 
carried  on  in  no  malicious  spirit,  and  by  no  hostile  hands. 
The  worst  robberies,  of  every  sort,  moral  or  pecuniary, 
of  character,  of  property,  or  of  opportunity,  are  those  which 
a  man  commits  upon  himself.     It  is  due  to  ourselves,  it  is 


19 


due  even  more  to  our  children,  that  the  national  soil  should 
not  be  impaired  by  our  ignorance  or  our  neglect.  It  is  a 
great  trust-estate,  of  which  each  generation  is  entitled  only 
to  the  use,  and  for  the  strip  and  waste  of  which  the  grand 
Proprietor  of  the  Universe  will  hold  us  to  account. 

Whether  the  promotion  of  agricultural  education  shall 
be  undertaken  through  systematic  courses  of  scientific  lec- 
tures, or  by  agricultural  schools  and  colleges,  with  experi- 
mental farms  attached  to  them,  or  by  the  preparation  and 
distribution  of  agricultural  tracts  and  treatises,  or  by  all 
combined,  it  is  for  the  farmers  to  say.  What  they  say  will 
not  fail  to  be  rightly  and  eifectively  said.  With  them 
words  will  be  things ;  for  no  Government  will  venture  to 
resist  their  deliberate  and  united  appeals. 

But  let  not  the  farmers,  or  the  friends  of  the  farmers,  de- 
ceive themselves.  When  all  that  can  be  desired  in  this  way 
shall  have  been  accomplished ;  when  Government  shall 
have  done  its  whole  duty  in  regard  to  agricultural  statistics 
and  agricultural  science ;  when  the  products  of  every  State 
and  of  every  district  in  the  Union  shall  have  been  put  in 
the  way  of  exact  and  periodical  ascertainment;  when  the 
American  soil  shall  have  been  everywhere  analyzed,  and 
when  those  who  till  it  shall  have  been  everywhere  instruct- 
ed in  its  peculiar  adaptations,  and  its  peculiar  properties, 
and  its  peculiar  wants ;  when  the  whole  vegetable  and 
animal  and  mineral  kingdoms  shall  have  been  raked  and 
ransacked  for  the  cheapest  and  most  accessible  and  most 
effective  fertilizers ;  when  some  safe  and  convenient  mode 
shall  have  been  contrived  (according  to  the  late  sugges- 
tion of  Lord  Palmerston  in  England)  for  tm'iiing  back  the 
drains  and  gutters  and  common  sewers  of  our  great  cities 
and  towns  upon  our  farms  and  gardens,  instead  of  allow- 
ing them  to  run  waste  to  the  sea,  breeding  pestilence  as 
they  flow,  "  the  country  thus  purifying  the  towns,  and  the 
towns  fertilizing  the  country ; "  when  the  great  doctrine  of 


20 


modern  science  shall  be  practically  recognized  and  applied, 
that  there  is  no  waste  in  the  physical  universe,  nothing 
in  excess,  nothing  useless,  from  the  bone  which  the  dog 
growls  over  at  our  door,  to  the  dung  of  the  sea-fowl,  for 
which  the  nations  of  the  earth  are  contending,  on  the  most 
distant  and  desolate  island,  but  that 

"  Nature  never  lends 
The  smallest  scruple  of  her  excellence, 
But,  like  a  thrifty  goddess,  she  determines 
Herself  the  glory  of  a  creditor, 
Both  thanks  and  use  ;" — 

still,  still,  the  great  want  of  American  agriculture  will  re- 
main, —  that  want  which  I  have  alluded  to,  in  the  opening 
of  this  address,  and  to  which  I  recur  once  more,  for  a 
few  moments,  in  its  conclusion,  —  the  want  of  adequate 
markets  for  the  sale  of  its  produce.  Nay,  the  want  will 
only  have  been  increased  and  aggravated  by  the  greater 
fertility  of  our  fields,  and  the  greater  abundance  of  our 
harvests. 

Now,  it  is  obvious,  that  these  markets  are  either  to  be 
supplied  at  home  or  abroad. 

And  I  am  not  one  of  those,  if  any  there  be,  who  are 
disposed  to  disparage  the  value  of  a  foreign  market  for 
any  thing  for  which  we  can  find  one.  It  is  clearly  the  duty 
of  our  Government  to  make  arrangements  in  every  way  in 
its  power  by  wise  negotiations  and  just  systems  of  reci- 
procity, for  the  introduction  into  foreign  countries  of  the 
largest  possible  amount  of  our  surplus  provisions  and 
breadstuff's.  Such  arrangements,  however,  are  clearly  com- 
mercial arrangements;  and  I  refer  to  them  merely  as  an 
illustration,  that  what  may  seem  to  be  done  by  our  legis- 
lators only  for  the  benefit  of  commerce,  may  really  result  in 
the  most  important  aid  and  advantage  to  agriculture. 

I  cannot  pass  from  this  topic,  however,  without  the  ex- 
pression of  an  opinion,  that  the  idea  of  an  adequate  foreign 


21 


market  for  our  agricultural  surplus  has  proved,  and  will 
still  prove,  utterly  fallacious  and  delusive.  There  is  at 
least  one  principle,  in  this  connection,  which  may  be  con- 
sidered as  settled  by  the  whole  current  of  experience,  and 
by  all  the  deductions  and  dictates  of  reason  and  common 
sense.  No  large  or  considerable  kingdom  or  country  will 
ever  be  habitually  dependent  on  the  soil  of  other  countries 
for  the  food  of  its  inhabitants.  Why,  where  would  be  the 
power  of  Great  Britain,  were  she  compelled  to  look  abroad 
for  the  daily  bread  of  her  people  ?  What  a  mockery  would 
be  her  boasted  dominion  over  the  seas!  What  a  farce 
her  world-encircling  chain  of  colonial  possessions  and  mili- 
tary posts !  With  what  face  would  she  venture  to  interfere 
with  our  fishing-grounds,  or  even  to  maintain  her  own,  were 
she  liable  to  be  starved  out  at  any  moment  by  our  embar- 
goes! We  should  soon  learn  how  to  bring  her  to  terms, 
as  her  own  parliaments  have  so  often  brought  her  monarchs 
to  terms,  by  a  simple  refusal  of  supplies,  a  simple  stopping 
of  rations. 

I  never  think,  Mr.  President,  of  this  dream  of  some  of 
our  American  farmers,  that  they  are  to  raise  food  for  all  the 
world,  without  associating  it  with  the  dream  of  Joseph  of 
old,  or  rather  with  his  two  successive  dreams,  as  related  to 
his  brethren,  and  recorded  in  Holy  Writ :  — 

"  Hear,  I  pray  you,"  said  he,  "  this  dream  which  I  have 
dreamed:  For,  behold,  we  were  binding  sheaves  in  the 
field,  and  lo !  my  sheaf  arose,  and  also  stood  upright ;  and, 
behold,  your  sheaves  stood  round  about,  and  made  obei- 
sance to  my  sheaf.  And  his  brethren  said  to  him,  Shalt 
thou  indeed  reign  over  us?  Or  shalt  thou  indeed  have 
dominion  over  us  ?  " 

"  And  he  dreamed  y^  another  dream,  and  told  it  to  his 
brethren,  and  said :  Behold,  I  have  dreamed  a  dream  more ; 
and,  behold,  the  sun,  and  the  moon,  and  the  eleven  stars, 
made  obeisance  to  me." 


22 


Sir,  the  one  of  these  dreams  is  as  likely  to  be  fulfilled 
in  our  favor  as  the  other.  We  may  as  well  hope  that  the 
constellations  of  the  other  hemisphere  will  stoop  to  make 
obeisance  to  our  constellation,  and  that  the  kings  and 
queens  of  the  earth  will  bend  and  do  homage  to  our  re- 
public, as  that  the  sheaves  of  other  lands  will  stand  round 
about  and  make  obeisance  to  our  sheaf,  and  the  agriculture 
of  the  world  acknowledge  its  dependence  upon  our  agri- 
culture. 

Indeed,  the  fulfilment  of  the  one  dream,  as  I  have  already 
suggested,  would  speedily  involve  the  fulfilment  of  the 
other.  No  great  nation  can  ever  maintain  its  political  in- 
dependence, except  by  sufferance  and  courtesy,  when  it  has 
become  absolutely  dependent  on  another  nation  for  its 
food.  As  to  Great  Britain,  moreover,  to  whom  our  farmers 
have  always  been  pointed  for  their  most  hopeful  market, 
and  to  whom,  I  doubt  not,  they  may  always  look  confi- 
dently for  an  occasional  demand  for  some  varieties  of  agri- 
enltuial  produce,  it  is  an  admitted  fact  that  she  can  feed 
herself,  as  it  is,  in  all  ordinary  seasons  ;  and  when  she  shall 
have  brought  all  her  reserve  land  into  cultivation,  and  re- 
claimed all  her  swamps  and  bogs  and  marshes,  and  esta- 
blished a  better  state  of  things  for  poor  Ireland,  and  applied 
the  modern  modes  of  systematic,  scientific  culture  to  the 
whole  soil  of  the  United  Kingdom,  she  may  defy  the  farm- 
ers of  the  world.  The  whole  notion  of  John  Bull's  sub- 
mitting to  be  fed  or  foddered  at  our  rack  and  out  of  our 
manger,  is  as  visionary  as  that  of  Brother  Jonathan's  put- 
ting his  neck  back  again  under  the  old  British  yoke. 

Nature  herself,  indeed,  presents  an  obstacle  which  settles 
the  question  for  ever.  It  has  been  calculated  by  the  late 
lamented  Mr.  Porter,  in  his  Progress  of  the  British  Nation 
(a  work  of  standard  authority),  that  "  to  supply  the  United 
Kingdom  with  the  simple  article  of  wheat  would  call  for 
the  employment  of  more  than  twice  the  amount  of  ship- 


23 


ping  which  now  annually  enters  our  ports;"  and  that  "  to 
bring  to  our  shores  every  article  of  agricultural  produce 
in  the  abundance  we  now  enjoy,  would  probably  give 
constant  occupation  to  the  mercantile  navy  of  the  whole 
world." 

The  sum  of  the  whole  matter  is  this :  American  agricul- 
ture must  look  at  home  for  its  great  market.  It  must  look 
to  consumers  upon  its  own  soil  and  at  its  own  doors  for  its 
only  sufficient  and  its  all-sufficient  demand.  The  natural 
and  rapid  increase  of  population  among  ourselves,  and  from 
the  native  stock,  will  do  something  for  it.  The  thronging 
multitudes  of  emigrants,  who  are  landed  daily  on  our 
shores,  will  do  something  for  it.  If  we  cannot  carry  over 
our  corn  to  the  hungry  millions  of  Europe,  we  can  bring 
the  hungry  millions  of  Europe  over  to  take  for  themselves 
from  our  granaries.  This  is  the  necessary  course  of  things; 
and  it  is  to  be  recognized  and  provided  for,  —  not  resisted, 
not  complained  of,  but  regulated  and  accepted  cheerfully, 
as  our  part  and  lot  in  the  dispensation  of  Providence.  Our 
colonial  fathers  and  mothers  were  pilgrims  and  exiles ;  and 
though  we  may  look  for  no  second  May-flower,  and  no 
second  Plymouth  Rock,  there  are  honest  and  heroic  hearts 
beating  beneath  many  a  tattered  frock  or  weather-beaten 
jacket  from  the  Emerald  Isle  or  the  German  Empire,  which 
demand  and  deserve  our  sympathy  and  succor;  and  it 
would  be  a  dishonor  to  the  memory  of  our  fathers,  if  we, 
their  civilized  descendants,  should  be  found  holding  out  a 
less  hospitable  reception  to  the  homeless  exile  of  the  pre- 
sent day,  than  they  received  even  from  the  poor  untutored 
Indian,  whom  they  were  destined  so  sadly  to  displace  and 
exterminate,  when  he  cried  to  them,  "  Welcome,  English- 
men ! " 

But  something  more  than  the  increase  of  population, 
whether  by  multiplication  at  home  or  by  immigration  from 
abroad,  is  necessary  for  the  relief  and  just  remuneration  of 


24 


American  agriculture.  Indeed  (as  I  have  already  sug- 
gested), if  these  throngs  of  emigrants,  and  if  so  many  of 
the  young  men  and  women  of  our  own  stock,  are  to  swarm 
over  at  once  to  our  Western  lands,  and  enter  forthwith  up- 
on a  life  of  agricultural  production,  they  will  only  increase 
and  aggravate  the  difficulties  under  which  our  farmers 
already  labor.  Instead  of  population  gaining  upon  food, 
food  will  still  go  on  gaining  upon  population ;  instead  of 
mouths  waiting  for  bread,  we  shall  perpetuate  the  specta- 
cle of  bread  waiting,  and  waiting  in  vain,  for  mouths. 

In  one  word,  there  must  be  a  division  and  distribution  of 
labor  in  our  country,  to  a  much  greater  extent  than  exists 
at  present,  in  order  that  agricultural  industry  may  receive  its 
just  rewards.  There  must  be  more,  and  more  numerous, 
separate  classes  of  consumers,  distinct  from  the  producers, 
in  order  that  food  may  command  a  fair  price,  and  afford 
an  adequate  compensation  and  encouragement  to  the  labor 
which  is  employed  in  raising  it.  Cheap  food  is  a  blessing 
not  to  be  spoken  lightly  of;  but  the  laborer  is  worthy  of  his 
hire,  and  it  can  never  be  the  policy  of  any  country  to  have 
food  so  cheap  that  it  shall  not  pay  for  the  raising,  that  it 
shall  not  pay  something  more  than  the  mere  cost  of  the 
raising.  It  can  never  be  the  policy  of  a  free  republican 
country  like  ours,  where  the  most  important  rights  and 
duties  of  Government  are  enjoyed  and  exercised  by  all  men 
alike  and  equally,  and  where  intelligence,  education,  and 
individual  independence  are  essential  to  the  maintenance 
of  our  liberties,  to  reduce  either  the  profits  of  land  or  the 
wages  of  labor  to  the  standard  of  a  bare  subsistence. 

Farming  is  never  destined  to  be  a  means  of  fortune-mak- 
ing, and  we  may  all  thank  Heaven  that  it  is  so.  If  million- 
naires  and  capitalists  and  speculators  could  make  their  cent 
per  cent  per  annum  by  growing  corn,  we  should  soon  see 
our  land  bought  up  for  permanent  investment  for  hirelings 
to  till ;  and  our  little  independent  proprietors,  cultivating 


25 


their  own  acres,  would  be  no  longer  the  stay  and  staff  of 
our  republican  institutions  and  our  republican  principles. 
God  grant  that  the  day  may  never  conrie,  when  this  coun- 
try shall  be  without  an  independent  rural  population,  own- 
ing no  lord  or  master  this  side  of  Heaven  ;  maintaining,  in 
all  their  purity  and  freshness,  those  rural  manners  and  rural 
habits  which  are  the  very  salt  and  saving  grace  of  our 
social  and  our  political  system.  God  grant  that  the  day 
may  never  come,  when  some  American  Goldsmith  shall 
paint  our  rural  villages  deserted,  our  rural  virtues  leaving 
the  land :  — 

"  E'en  now,  methinks,  as  pondering  here  I  stand, 
I  see  the  rural  virtues  leave  the  land. 
Contented  toil,  and  hospitable  care. 
And  kind,  connubial  tenderness,  are  there; 
And  piety  with  wishes  placed  above. 
And  steady  loyalty,  and  faithful  love." 

But  the  farmer  ought  to  have  something  more  than  a 
mere  living  price  for  his  products.  He  ought  to  be  able  to 
lay  up  something  to  send  a  son  to  college,  or  to  set  up  a 
daughter  in  house-keeping,  or  to  support  his  wife  and  him- 
self, and  keep  the  wolf  from  the  door,  when  sickness  or 
old  age  shall  put  a  stop  to  their  daily  toil.  The  true  pro- 
tection of  agriculture,  and  the  true  promotion  of  the  wel- 
fare of  the  individual  farmer,  are  to  be  found,  and  can  only 
be  found,  in  building  up  the  manufacturing  and  mechanic 
arts  of  our  country,  in  creating  a  diversified  industry,  and 
in  establishing  more  proportionate  relations  between  the 
various  departments  of  human  labor.  When  this  shall  be 
accomplished,  there  will  be  less  need  of  Government  inter- 
vention for  encouraging  agricultural  science  and  diffusing 
agricultural  information.  It  will  then  cease  to  be  recorded 
of  our  American  agriculture,  that  "  its  two  prominent  fea- 
tures are  its  productiveness  of  crops,  and  its  destructiveness 
of  soil;"  for  it  is  the  one  of  these  features  which  leads 

4 


26 


directly  to  the  other.  It  is  the  over-production  of  our  agri- 
culture which  causes  so  much  of  careless  and  destructive 
cultivation.  It  is  the  superabundance  of  our  aggregate 
harvests  which  occasions  the  meagreness  of  so  many  of 
our  individual  harvests.  Who  cares  to  make  his  farm 
yield  double  its  present  crop,  when  there  is  so  precarious  a 
market  for  what  it  yields  already  ?  Who  can  style  him 
a  benefactor  who  makes  two  blades  of  grass  grow  where 
only  one  grew  before,  when  the  result  of  such  a  process 
must  be  to  diminish  the  chances  of  remuneration  to  the 
laborer,  and  when  doubling  the  product  is  so  likely  to 
divide  an  already  inadequate  price  ? 

And    now,  my  friends,  I   am    not  about  to  violate  the 
political  neutrality  of  this  occasion,  by  inquiring  how  this 
diversified  industry,  which  is  so  necessary  to  the  prosperity 
of  the  farmer,  and  to  the  promotion  of  agriculture,  is  to  be 
brought  about ;  whether  by  protective  tariff's,  or  judicious 
tariff's,  or  moderate  specific  duties,  or  reasonable  discrimi- 
nation, or  by  ad-valorems  and  free  trade.     This  question, 
though  it  never  ought  to  have  been  permitted  to  enter  into 
party  politics,  has   practically  become   so   identified  with 
them,  that  it  must  be  left  to  other   occasions.      But   the 
necessity  of  a  greater  distribution  of  labor  to  the  prosperity 
of  all  concerned  in  labor,  and  the  especial  need  which  the 
American  farmer  feels,  at  this  moment,  of  more  persons 
engaged  in   other  pursuits,  who   may  become   purchasers 
and  consumers  of  his  produce,  and  the  danger  that  the 
American  soil  will  receive  serious  and  permanent  detriment 
from  the  careless,  hand-to-mouth,  cultivation,  which  such 
a   state   of  things   induces,  —  these    are  no  party  topics. 
They  are  great  truths,  which  all  must  admit,  and  which  all 
ought  to  lay  to  heart. 

There  is  a  letter  of  Dr.  Franklin's,  written  in  London  on 
the  22d  of  April,  1771,  to  Humphry  Marshall,  a  Pennsyl- 
vania Farmer,  which  contains  as  much   practical  wisdom 


27 


as  I  ever  remember  to  have  found  in  the  same  compass,  in 
relation  to  the  prosperity  of  the  American  farmer.  It  is  as 
applicable  now  as  wlien  it  was  written  ;  and  it  ought  to  be 
printed  in  good  legible  type,  and  hung  up  in  a  frame  in 
every  farmer's  house  in  the  Union :  — 

"  The  Colonies,"  says  he,  "  that  produce  provisions,  grow 
very  fast.  But,  of  the  countries  that  take  off  those  provi- 
sions, some  do  not  increase  at  all,  as  the  European  nations  ; 
and  others,  as  the  West  India  Colonies,  not  in  the  same 
proportion.  So  that,  though  the  demand  at  present  may 
be  sufficient,  it  cannot  long  continue  so.  Every  manufac- 
turer encouraged  in  our  country  makes  part  of  a  market 
for  provisions  within  ourselves,  and  saves  so  much  money 
to  the  country  as  must  otherwise  be  exported  to  pay  for  the 
manufactures  he  supplies.  Here  in  England,"  he  adds,  "  it 
is  well  known  and  understood,  that,  wherever  a  manufac- 
ture is  established  which  employs  a  number  of  hands,  it 
raises  the  value  of  lands  in  the  neighboring  country  all 
around  it,  partly  by  the  greater  demand  near  at  hand 
for  the  produce  of  the  land,  and  partly  from  the  plenty  of 
money  drawn  by  the  manufacturers  to  theu-  part  of  the 
country.  It  seems,  therefore,  the  interest  of  all  our  farmers 
and  owners  of  lands  to  encourage  our  young  manufac- 
tures in  preference  to  foreign  ones,  imported  among  us  from 
distant  countries." 

In  these  golden  words  of  Franklin,  which  could  find  no 
better  illustration  the  world  over  than  here,  in  presence  of 
those  to  whose  lands  and  to  whose  crops  yonder  mills  and 
furnaces  and  machine-shops  have  given  a  value  so  far 
beyond  any  which  they  could  otherwise  have  commanded, 
—  if  these  golden  words  of  Franklin,  I  say,  could  be  im- 
pressed upon  the  heart  and  mind  of  every  farmer  in  our 
land,  there  would  be  less  complaint  that  our  Government 
had  found  time  to  do  every  thing  for  manufactures  and  the 
mechanic  arts,  and  had  done  nothing  for  agriculture ;  and  it 


28 


would  be  seen  and  understood,  that  whatever  had  been  done 
for  any  one  of  the  great  interests  of  American  labor  had 
been  done  for  all ;  and  that  all  were  bound  up  together  for 
a  common  weal  or  a  common  woe,  incapable  of  separation 
or  opposition.  There  is  nothing  indeed  more  evident,  and 
nothing  more  beautiful,  than  the  harmony  of  all  the  great 
industrial  interests  in  our  Union.  There  may  be  jealousies 
and  rivalries  and  oppositions  between  the  farmers  and  the 
manufacturers  and  the  merchants  elsewhere,  in  the  old, 
closely  settled,  and  crowded  populations  of  Europe ;  but 
there  can  be  none  reasonably,  none  rightfully,  here.  Nothing 
short  of  miraculous  intervention,  liive  that  which  watered 
the  fleece  of  Gideon,  while  all  the  other  fleeces  were  dry, 
can  elevate  one  branch  of  industry,  or  one  department  of 
labor,  at  the  expense  of  another.  The  highest  prosperity 
of  each  is  not  only  consistent  with,  but  inseparable  from, 
the  highest  prosperity  of  all.  What  is  done  for  any  is  done 
for  all ;  and  all  find  their  best  encouragement  and  protection 
in  the  common  welfare  and  prosperity  of  the  whole  com- 
munity. We  see,  or  ought  to  see,  something  of  that 
mutual  sympathy  and  succor  among  American  laborers,  of 
which  so  graphic  a  sketch  is  given  by  one  of  the  prophets 
of  Israel :  "  So  the  carpenter  encouraged  the  goldsmith, 
and  he  that  smootheth  with  the  hammer  him  that  smote 
the  anvil.  They  helped  every  one  his  neighbor  ;  and  every 
one  said  to  his  brother,  Be  of  good  courage." 

The  greatest  division  of  labor,  the  most  complete  and 
cordial  union  among  laborers,  —  this  is  the  true  motto 
and  maxim  which  our  condition  suggests  and  inculcates  ; 
and  the  American  farmer  should  be  the  first  to  adopt  and 
cherish  it. 

A  word  or  two,  Mr.  President  and  gentlemen,  and  only  a 
word  or  two,  in  conclusion.  In  all  that  I  have  said,  I  have 
spoken,  as  I  proposed  to  speak,  of  American  agriculture,  so 
far  as  it  is  occupied  in  the  production  of  food,  and  through 


29 


the  agency  ol"  free  labor,  in  uU  parts  of  our  wide-spread 
land.  In  looking  at  the  agriculture  of  Massachusetts  as  a 
separate  State,  we  find  many  of  the  circumstances,  which 
characterize  the  agricultural  condition  of  the  country  at 
large,  reversed.  There  is  no  over-production  of  food,  and 
no  danger  of  any  such  over-production,  for  our  own  popu- 
lation within  our  own  limits.  On  the  contrary,  it  has  been 
estimated  that  we  are  at  this  moment  dependent  on  our 
sister  States  for  more  than  three  millions  of  bushels  of 
breadstuffs,  —  being  a  full  half  of  our  whole  consumption. 

Now,  so  far  as  this  fact  may  fairly  betoken  any  bad  cul- 
tivation on  the  part  of  our  farmers ;  so  far  as,  taken  in 
connection  with  other  facts,  it  indicates  a  deterioration  of 
our  soil,  and  a  progressive  disproportion  between  the  acres 
in  cultivation  and  the  crops  which  they  yield,  —  it  is  a  fact 
deeply  to  be  deplored,  and  which  ought  to  furnish  a  serious 
warning  to  the  Government  and  the  people  of  the  Common- 
wealth. 

But,  so  far  as  it  only  indicates  a  greater  division  and 
distribution  of  labor  within  our  own  borders ;  so  far  as  it 
is  only  the  result  of  a  gradual  multiplication  of  mechanics 
and  manufacturers  among  us,  to  consume  the  products,  not 
only  of  our  own  husbandmen,  but  of  those  of  other  States, 
neighboring  and  remote,  —  it  is  a  subject  of  positive  and 
unqualified  congratulation.  For  one,  I  never  desire  to  see 
the  day  when  Massachusetts  shall  feed  herself.  Nature  has 
marked  and  quoted  her  for  a  different  destiny.  Her  long 
line  of  indented  sea-coast,  stretching  out  around  two  noble 
capes,  and  bending  in  again  along  two  noble  bays,  desig- 
nates her  unmistakably  for  a  commercial  and  navigating 
State ;  and  her  countless  fleets  of  coasters  and  fishing 
smacks  and  merchant-ships  and  whalers  give  ample  attes- 
tation that  she  has  not  been  blind  to  her  vocation.  Her 
numerous  rivers  and  streams,  with  their  abundant  water- 
falls, designate  her  hardly  less  distinctly  as  a  manufacturing 


30 


State  ;  and  her  sons,  and  her  daughters  too,  are  fast  proving 
that  they  know  how  to  fulfil  this  destiny  also.  A  great 
agricultural  State  she  was  never  made  for.  If  she  ever 
feeds  herself,  it  will  be  by  the  decrease  of  her  population, 
and  not  by  the  adequacy  of  her  products.  Her  farmers  will 
always  find  enough  to  occupy  them.  The  perishable  arti- 
cles of  daily  consumption,  which  must  be  found  at  one's 
door,  or  not  at  all,  must  come  always  from  them.  Their 
milk,  their  garden-fruits  and  vegetables,  their  hay  too,  and 
their  eggs  and  poultry,  can  hardly  be  interfered  with  injuri- 
ously, if  at  all,  by  any  supplies  from  abroad,  and  can  hardly 
be  furnished  in  too  large  quantities  at  home.  But  the 
cereal  grains,  the  beef  and  pork  and  mutton,  and  the  butter 
and  cheese  of  other  States,  are,  I  trust,  to  find  a  still 
increasing  market  in  Massachusetts,  in  exchange  for  the 
products  of  her  looms  and  anvils  and  lap-stones,  and  for 
the  earnings  of  her  commerce  and  fisheries.  I  would  gladly 
see  the  United  States  independent  of  all  foreign  nations 
for  all  the  necessaries  of  life,  —  clothing  as  well  as  food ; 
but  I  do  not  desire  to  see  the  separate  States  independent 
of  each  other :  first,  because  climate,  soil,  geographical  po- 
sition, and  physical  condition,  designate  them  for  different 
departments  of  industry,  and  their  own  highest  prosperity 
will  be  subserved  by  following  nature ;  and,  second,  because 
these  mutual  wants  and  mutual  dependencies  are  among 
the  strongest  bonds  of  our  blessed  Union,  and  give  the 
best  guaranty  that  it  shall  endure  for  ever. 

Let  Massachusetts  do  all  the  farming  she  can ;  and  all 
that  she  does,  let  her  be  sure  to  do  well.  Let  her  transmit  no 
exhausted  or  impoverished  soil  to  posterity.  Let  her  exhibit 
to  all  the  world  what  industry  and  energy  and  thrift  and 
temperance  and  education  and  science  can  do,  in  overcom- 
ing the  disadvantages  and  obstacles  of  a  hard  soil  and  a  stern 
sky.  Let  her  be  a  model  State  in  agriculture,  and  in  what- 
ever else  she  undertakes.     But  let  her  not  dream  of  feeding 


31 


herself.  For  myself,  I  should  feel  as  if  either  the  days  of  the 
American  Union  were  numbered,  or  certainly  as  if  her  own 
house  were  about  to  be  left  unto  her  desolate,  if  the  time 
should  ever  come  when  the  wheat  of  Pennsylvania  and 
Maryland,  and  the  pork  of  Ohio,  and  the  beef  and  mutton 
of  New  York  and  Vermont,  and  the  yellow  corn  of  Vir- 
ginia, and  the  rice  of  the  Carolinas,  could  find  no  ready 
market  for  their  sale,  and  no  willing  and  watering  mouths 
for  their  consumption,  in  the  old  Bay  State.  I  delight  to 
contemplate  the  various  members  of  this  vast  republic, 
like  members  of  a  common  family,  not  all  alike,  but  with 
only  such  distinctions  as  become  sisters  ;  not  selfishly  and 
churlishly  attempting  to  do  every  thing  for  themselves,  or 
to  interfere  with  each  other's  vocation,  but  pursuing  their 
different  destinies  in  a  spirit  of  mutual  kindness  and  mu- 
tual reliance  ;  freely  interchanging  the  products  of  their  soil 
and  of  their  skill  in  time  of  peace,  and  firmly  interposing 
their  united  power  for  the  common  protection  in  time  of 
war ;  bearing  each  other's  burdens  ;  supplying  each  other's 
wants  ;  remembering  each  other's  weaknesses  ;  rejoicing  in 
each  other's  prosperity ;  and  all  clustering  with  eager  affec- 
tion around  the  car  of  a  common  Liberty,  —  like  the  Hours 
in  the  exquisite  fresco  of  Guido  around  the  chariot  of  the 
Sun, —  as  it  advances  to  scatter  the  shades  of  ignorance 
and  oppression,  and  to  spread  light  and  freedom  and  hap- 
piness over  the  world  I 

Gentlemen,  I  can  offer  no  better  prayer  to  Heaven,  either 
for  human  liberty  or  for  human  labor  in  all  its  branches, 
than  that  this  spectacle  of  concord  and  harmony  among 
the  American  States  may  be  witnessed  in  still  increasing 
beauty  and  perfection,  as  long  as  the  Sun  or  the  Hours 
shall  roll  on ! 


m 


